The students read and analyzed John Keats’ poem, “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” and we then did a Visible Thinking exercise using artwork that was inspired by Keats’ poem.

They had their choice from the following paintings:

Walter Crane (1865)

Arthur Hughes (1861-63)

Frank Cadogan Cowper (1926)

Henry Meynell Rheam (1901)

John William Waterhouse (1893)

Robert Anning Bell

Sir Frank Dicksee (1902)

Once the class voted on the painting they wished to work with, we did a See/Think/Wonder exercise in which they had to focus on how the painting reflected specific imagery in Keats’ poem. We share their responses using Post-Its and then wrote a three-chunk paragraph analyzing the painting using textual support from the poem.

While the students were writing, we listened to the following musical interpretation of “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” as performed by Jesse Ferguson.